


A Bad Man Lends a Hand

by ChillyHollow



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Alternate Universe, Deceit, F/M, Friendship, Shanker - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:02:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23120680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChillyHollow/pseuds/ChillyHollow
Summary: For Blue_Robin, who mentioned in comments that Shanker ‘ships Cormoran and Robin as hard as Ilsa does.  I started to wonder what that would look like….
Relationships: Robin Ellacott & Shanker, Robin Ellacott/Cormoran Strike, Shanker & Cormoran Strike
Comments: 14
Kudos: 33





	1. Shanker Goes on a Road Trip

The borrowed car was a bit low on gas so he stopped for some, picking up coffees and a newspaper when he paid.His passenger was asleep, so he left the radio off and concentrated on driving fast and smoothly.He liked to drive, so this was no imposition.He wanted to think things over anyway.

He’d broken a rule he’d had for years—he was doing this without payment up front.Of course it was for Bunsen.Bunsen was a bit different than anyone else in his life except maybe Lucy.Bunsen, despite being on the wrong side of the law, was close to being family.He had cousins but no siblings.He’d never known his father, like Bunsen, and his mother was dead, again like Bunsen.He’d lived with Bunsen and Lucy for around five years as a teen.Their mother had taken him in as an orphan and treated him like another son.So he owed something to her children, he guessed.He always paid his debts.Silly not to with the life he led. 

But still, it had always been payment in advance for him until now.He wondered if he was getting soft.

He liked Robin.She was tough and compassionate, like Bunsen’s mum had been.Well, Leda had been compassionate.Tough wasn’t the right word for her.Leda’d floated through life, trying to stay upright in a hard world.Robin fought life, trying to make things right.She was like Bunsen in that.He thought that Bunsen might be in love with her.It was hard to say for sure as Bunsen was close-mouthed about it, but he thought he’d spotted the signs.Bunsen liked women and they liked him but he usually stayed out of their clutches, except for Charlotte.

Charlotte was gorgeous and mean; beautiful and bad; sexy and poison.He’d found her funny the few times he’d actually met her, but like her?No. He didn’t like her. She was too much of a drama queen to appeal to him.He wanted his women earthy and real.Bunsen was welcome to the bitch.But apparently they were over for good and if Bunsen wanted Robin, he could see why.Robin’s the sort a man could live with forever.But they were on the way to Robin’s wedding and he had no idea what Bunsen planned.He doubted Bunsen knew himself what he would do.

He wasn’t a romantic but he knew Bunsen was.If he wanted a woman, he told her so.If she was agreeable, they would spend the weekend in bed.If not, someone else would be willing.That was too simple for Bunsen.If Bunsen would just grab the bride, toss her in the back of their car and take her to the nearest cheap motel for a good shag, he’d be fine with that.It would be better for Bunsen and Robin to go that route he thought.A weekend spent fucking each other would solve a lot of problems in his opinion.That would happen about the same time he was elected to Parliament, though.He knew his man well.

He drove on, listening to Bunsen’s slight snoring.He looked a mess.That killer had sliced him up good and of course the police had kept him up all night, questioning him, looking for a way to keep him out of the limelight they wanted all to themselves.Bunsen said it didn’t matter as long as Robin was safe, away from the killer’s long knives.He supposed he was right.The press would figure out the police hadn’t a clue shortly, as if they ever did.And Bunsen’s wounds would heal.He wasn’t sure that his heart would if Robin married somebody else, however.He knew Bunsen.He would make sure the car was gassed up before they got to the wedding, just in case Bunsen came to his senses and they needed a quick getaway.

They made it to the church in Yorkshire a little late but not bad.He parked and watched Bunsen limp hurriedly into the church.He smoked and waited in the little church’s parking lot.Finally people poured out of the chapel.Robin looked lovely, like an angel.The groom looked like a pretty wanker.Shanker knew the type—good looking and knew it, insecure and weak, petty and annoying.He’d cheat on Robin with every set of big knockers that wandered by.

He liked Robin.He wasn’t really interested in her sexually, she was too straight for him, but she did have a nice figure.She’d be good for Bunsen.He would do what he could for them.Someone had to watch out for the silly pair, after all, and he guessed it would be up to him.He would just have to figure out how to get them together.For now his job was driver.But he could plot how to throw them together and let hormones do the rest, since once they slept together, he thought they’d work it out.Get them drunk and lock them in Bunsen’s office?Too chancy.Deliver a naked, hogtied Bunsen to Robin’s flat?Too difficult.Bunsen was too large to drag far and pretty boy would be there anyway—he was the sort to dump a tied up man in the Thames.Take them to Cornwall and leave them on the beach?Too chancy again.Tell each of them that the other was laying injured in their office?Maybe….

He started the car and drove Bunsen to the wedding reception, thinking. 


	2. The Deceiver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shanker is a wicked, devious man with absolutely no moral qualms who is about to play Cupid. Just so you know.
> 
> For Blue_Robin

He waited several months to see how things played out between newly married Robin and Bunsen. He’d stayed alive and out of jail this long by reading people and predicting accurately what they’d do.He would turn that skill to Bunsen’s advantage once the glow from Robin’s recent marriage wore off and her pretty boy husband had time to reveal his ugly side.

It was going to take some work to get Bunsen and Robin in bed together, he knew that.But he’d never shied away from a challenge.It would just take some careful planning.They were crazy about each other but each was afraid to make the first move.He didn’t get it, but it didn’t have to make sense—it was just the way they were.

He tried getting them sloshed and then back to Bunsen’s office, which was only steps from the bed in Bunsen’s flat.He hadn’t counted on Robin’s being such a lightweight with booze, though.After three drinks she was wobbling but Bunsen had barely a buzz. Bunsen called Robin a cab and sent her home so Shanker and Bunsen could drink on without her. Ok, time for Plan B.

What was Plan B?

He thought for several weeks, trying to come up with a good idea.Then Bunsen fell in the street, injured his knee, and would be laid up for a week.Excellent!Robin could play nurse.Surely a few days in Bunsen’s bedroom would start to give her ideas.Then he found out that Bunsen was spending the day alone in bed with his laptop while Robin did all the surveillance jobs, only showing up in Bunsen’s flat to take him meals and briefly check on him.He had hopes that she would spend the night to keep an eye on her partner but the puritanical bastard was sending her home to catch up on her rest.This was getting annoying.

He decided to play the jealousy card.He managed to lift Bunsen’s phone from his pocket and used it to text Charlotte to come to the Tottenham one Friday night.He knew that Robin and Bunsen often went to their local pub Friday evening to have an end of week celebration drink.So he made sure Charlotte thought Bunsen was asking her to join him there.He hadn’t counted on Charlotte’s still being furious with Bunsen for dumping her.She hadn’t shown up.Women were turning out to be harder to predict than men.Well, maybe he could work it from the other end. 

He mentally reviewed all the good-looking guys he knew who might be tempted by cold hard cash to take Robin out.All they had to do was take her to dinner and make a pass at her.He finally picked Allen, a con artist who was smoother than smooth with women.Then he had to follow Robin for a bit to see her regular routine to find a plausible place for her to meet Allen.That wasn’t easy, she was good at surveillance, so he had to be very very careful.It took time but he finally settled on the gym she went to each Sunday morning.He paid Allen to join and to get to know Robin and ask her out, which should make Bunsen wildly jealous.He had no illusions that Bunsen wouldn’t see how phony Adam was.That was part of the plan.A good shouting match between independent Robin and overprotective Bunsen was halfway to the bedroom.It seemed to go pretty well at first, but she turned out to be indifferent to Allen.Allen himself soon lost interest—he got restless and wanted to get back to charming widows out of their life savings.It was a lot more profitable, and he had to admit Allen had a point.There was only so much he was willing to pay Allen as he didn’t trust him one inch. 

He was beginning to get desperate but he got an idea when he remembered Bunsen’s birthday was approaching.He bought an expensive bottle of whiskey.The Friday night before Bunsen’s birthday he showed up at the office with it and presented it to Bunsen, then talked Bunsen into taking a celebratory drink with Robin and himself.They were talking about a client and not paying him much attention so he managed to spike both their drinks.Robin buckled first but Bunsen followed soon after.Now the hard part—Bunsen’s keys in his hand, he carried Robin up to Bunsen’s flat, got the door unlocked, laid her on Bunsen’s bed, stripped her naked, then went back for Bunsen.It took a lot longer to drag Bunsen up the stairs, undress him and then dump him on the bed with Robin.

Back in the office, he grabbed Robin’s purse, the whiskey and their liquor glasses, carefully locked up Bunsen’s office the way he’d watched him do a dozen times before, then went back upstairs where he staged the flat to make it look like they had gone upstairs, had more drinks, stripped off their clothes and shagged.It did about kill him to pour some of that expensive booze down the sink but needs must.(He did drink some, though, just to help lower the level in the bottle appropriately.) He rinsed out the spiked booze glasses and added a bit more liquor to them so they looked and smelled natural, then left them on the kitchen table near the uncapped whiskey bottle.

He laid Robin on her back, legs spread wide and Bunsen on top of her with one hand cupping her breast and the other in her hair as if they’d dropped off after drunken sex.He wrapped Robin’s legs around Strike’s waist.He found condoms in Bunsen’s bedside table, tore one open and dropped the package on the floor. He rolled out the condom, squirted some lube inside it from a tube he found in the drawer for realism, then wrapped the fake used condom in a tissue and tossed it in the bin by the bed.He left an unused condom within easy reach.After a bit of thought, he grabbed Robin’s silk scarf off the floor and tied one end with a bow around the wrist of Bunsen’s hand where it lay tangled in Robin’s hair.Looping the scarf around the headboard, he tied the other end around one of Robin’s wrists with a slip knot, like the ones he and Bunsen had learned to tie with Bunsen’s uncle out on his boat in St. Mawes.He knew that Robin would likely come to before Bunsen (guessing dosages was always chancy, even for someone with his experience) and this way it would be harder for her to slip away without waking Bunsen.As a bonus it would make them think they’d played drunken sex games together.

For this plan to work, he needed them to wake up together naked in Bunsen’s bed with convincing evidence of their debauchery all around them.The stuff he drugged them with would give them a hangover and they wouldn’t remember much of the previous evening.That was close enough to shagging after drinking way too much that they should believe that was exactly what they had done, particularly since they had the hots for each other.The rest would be up to them.He was betting once they thought they’d fucked, they’d not be able to resist doing it again and again.No reason not to if they’d already done the dirty, right?Any qualms they might have had became irrelevant once they’d already screwed each other—or thought they had.He put the keys back in Bunsen’s pants pocket, shut and managed to lock the door to the flat from the outside, and tiptoed home. 

Then he waited.And waited.That was always the hard part, but he knew waiting was essential.He probably wouldn’t know if his plan had worked for a couple of weeks.He heard a juicy tidbit about a planned robbery that he texted Bunsen about and managed to snag an invite to a bar where he handed over the information in return for cash.Then he bought Bunsen a beer and casually asked him how work was going.Bunsen was noncommittal but after a third beer Bunsen did say Robin was ok with a funny look on his face.That was encouraging. Bunsen claimed he had a quiet weekend planned, just watching some football on Sunday afternoon, which was encouraging also.Workaholic Bunsen staying home might mean bedding Robin was on the menu. 

He decided that the only way he’d know for sure if his plan had worked was to sneak into the building late Saturday night and see what he could see.Or hear.So he did, using a set of keys he’d cut when he managed to get Bunsen’s key ring for just long enough.He listened carefully outside the office but it looked dark and it was quiet.He tiptoed up the stairs to Bunsen’s flat and listened at the door.He could hear movement and voices.He waited in silence.Then he heard the headboard banging against the wall and Robin moaning.He waited, holding his breath.Bunsen called out Robin’s name as her moans got louder, and the banging got faster and louder, Bunsen and Robin both cried out in release, and the banging stopped abruptly.He clearly heard Bunsen say, “Christ, that was hot,” and Robin laughed.

He tiptoed down the stairs again, smiling to himself, before going out onto the street and locking the door behind him, content that his plan had worked at last.This cupid stuff was hard work but ultimately quite satisfying.Time for a nice little smoke in celebration. 

**Author's Note:**

> I did a follow up story which you can find here.  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/23007781


End file.
